I’ve been worried about our country…
Feels to me we are heading down a path toward authoritarian rule…
Perhaps I am too worried because I do not understand enough about history.
Perhaps things were as bad or worse during the times of McCarthyism, with communist witch hunts…
I remember as a teenager the strife in this country regarding the Vietnam war.
At that time acting as a hippie, with long hair, smoking cigarettes and pot, taking LSD trips, marching against The War…
Also rebelling by skipping my high school classes, and barely graduating…
Inside, I still feel more hippie, rather than establishment.
I maintain responsibility for my patients, and economic responsibility for my family…
However, I remain a heretic in my beliefs that our medical system is largely broken, particularly for those with chronic pain and psychological disease…
What has most been troublesome to me is what seems to be a downward slide toward anti-science…
Reading this morning an article in the NYTimes, an interview with Neal Stephenson, dated Jan 9, 2022.
This was about his climate-change-focused book “Termination Shock.” I ordered it, not read, as of yet, coming Monday…
He had an interesting take on methods of belief.
He was reading a book from the 1870’s by Charles Sanders Peirce “The Fixation of Belief.”
Peirce listed 4 methods of belief:
1-Tenacity – you decide what you believe, and stick to it, logic and evidence have no effect…
2-Authority – you believe what someone “above you” tells you to believe…
3-A Priori – peer agreement by consensus of people around you…
4-Scientific Method – dating back to Hooke and Newton, where in the 1600’s for the first time persons starting using experimentation in order to gain information, pointing toward truth, and being willing to change belief based on the results of experimentation.
I actually only see three methods of belief: Authority, A Priori, Scientific method…
I think of Tenacity as the strength of belief, and inability to change…
As a scientist I have seen scientists fall for Authority and A Priori, due to Tenacity…
Additionally, A Priori, or consensus building, is the basis of hypothesis development, which is the first step before Scientific Experimentation, where you then obtain evidence to support your hypothesis, or to refute your hypothesis… 
There was then a link to an article about Katharine Hayhoe, who is both a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian (NYTimes Dec 29, 2021).
She spoke about Jonathan Haidt, who says that people make up their minds, and then find information to support what they believe, labeled as “Moral Judgment.”
She brings up examples of people dying of Covid, denying that they have Covid. And then relates this to persons rejecting relatively simple protection from Covid such as vaccination and masking.
She then relates this to Climate Change Denial…
Getting back to Neal Stephenson, he has an interesting take on the possible solution to addressing climate change, and that might relate to “Greed.”
If persons can make money on methods to combat climate change, any of many possible methods, we might be able to get a hold of this problem…
I feel that there are only a small percentage of people who can actually change beliefs, even when confronted with compelling evidence…
Yet, contemplating these articles actually gives me hope.
I do not think that people have changed for the worse, we are mostly a primitive, so far, poorly evolved species.
http://enlightenedmdphd.blogspot.com/2013/02/just-stranger-in-strange-land-part-2.html
I feel that economic stress and the Covid pandemic has uncovered how primitive we are…
We may have dug quite a deep hole with previously electing Drumf and similar politicians, and then packing the Supreme court with conservatives… 
This country may not be able to dig itself out in my lifetime..
However, there will be those who are dismayed by this turn of events, and then, perhaps, pushed to evolving to a more compassionate level, hopefully, long-term, leading to a more just and compassionate country…
Perhaps I am just a foolish optimist…
I hope not…
Namaste
